


Aboard the Jolly Dashwave

by Aesoleucian



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-03 04:45:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoleucian/pseuds/Aesoleucian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Lalonde and her guardians smuggle illicit goods for a living, so it's only to be expected when they run into trouble as well as some very interesting people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Rose Does Not Get Drunk

Two months after they managed to unload two entire stolen ships on a tiny moon of Erebos, Roxy finally figured it was safe enough to return to civilization without attracting undue attention from any one of the half dozen fleets they had offended. This was a relief, since the small crew of the Vodka Dashwave had been getting more and more antsy the longer Dirk insisted they lay low—and although he was always overcautious he enjoyed visiting new star systems as much as the next crew member. Luckily, or by machination, they ended up only a short distance from the Set system; Roxy landed Dash at the major shipping hub on Thos where she would be lost among hundreds of enormous freighters and transport ships.

The port district was clean and well kept, with guards every few hundred meters. It was very reassuring, but it made it even more of a shock when they left the gates.

Outside the streets were narrow, here on one of the earliest colonized planets in the system, and they passed under several bridges every block. Evening was falling purple through the city’s haze, and nightlife was beginning to appear from the cracks: long black coats and brightly colored high-necked shirts that were the fashion here these days, people carrying neon lamps surrounded by artificial smoke, gaudy mercenaries who jingled everywhere when they walked. Roxy made frequent appreciative comments with regards to booty and bling, and was able to squeeze interested glances out of some passersby. It was a talent, but Rose wasn’t sure whether she was contemptuous or envious.

As they walked by a man wearing only a skirt made from several layers of silk and some unnecessarily complex glowing jewelry, Rose craned her neck to make note. Dirk glanced around and snickered, so she punched him. Though she presented herself as unimpressed, Rose was always interested to see different kinds of fashions in each city and planet (and usually more interested in fashion than the people wearing it). One of her long-time correspondents always demanded that she take pictures, which made her feel a bit tacky, but it was worth it for the effusive excitement it elicited.

Roxy, with her unerring instinct for the sleaziest and most lively bars, led the party to a cramped little tavern with five stories of rooms for rent and a slightly worrying forward lean. A garden spilled over the edge of the roof and onto the tiny fifth floor balcony. Charming, yes, but not even clearly a bar; where on some planets such establishments could be distinguished by the gratuitous use of neon, Thosian buildings were all smothered with it.

When they entered, though, it became apparent through the dimness and smoke why she had chosen this one in particular; Jane Crocker and about a dozen of her command were sitting around a long table, and all of them cheered when Roxy shouted “Next round’s on me for the Terran Fleet officers!”

Jane herself, wide and muscular, scooted over on the bench to make room for Roxy beside her. Dirk flash-stepped into the seat instead, forcing Jane to push him into her cousin’s side to create an extra space. Rose smiled as Jane and Dirk started elbowing each other, trying to make good on the standing mutual threat of mussed hair.

Jake sat on the other side of the table, across from Jane’s cousin John, and Rose followed his lead. Already Roxy and some of the officers were taking bets on a drinking contest between Dirk, Jane, and John. Adults could be very predictable.

“What do you reckon?” asked Jake, leaning forward eagerly. 

“Dirk will win.” Rose rolled her eyes and tilted to the side to look up at him. “Dirk always wins drinking contests. He’s actually incapable of becoming drunk.”

“How does he do it?” Jake shook his head admiringly.

“If only I had the genetics for the necessary enzymes, I could probably do it too. But, alas, no.”

Jake nodded, an overwrought look of woe on his face—Rose couldn’t tell whether he was playing along or actually sympathizing with her low alcohol tolerance. In any case, she ordered a club soda with lime and dye to make it look a little more respectable. She might be too young and too Chinese to drink, but she would certainly not let that stop her from looking like she could. Sort of.

“See, my theory is that Dirk gets drunk just like a normal person,” John told Rose loudly. “You just can’t tell ‘cause he acts exactly the same!”

“Trust him to have self control while completely sloshed,” said Jake, sounding disgusted. “Who does he think he is!”

“Ah, drinks are up!”

\--

An hour and a half later Rose was embellishing a story about one of their narrow escapes from the Alternian military to several eager officers, since everyone who had actually been there was otherwise occupied. “So there we were,” she said, dutifully minding her storytelling tropes, “actually in the process of covering our ship with a camouflage tarp, when the scout came back around and landed on the other side of the asteroid.”

Jake, who she had thought wasn’t paying attention, interrupted her to add, “And what do you think Roxy did, but shoved me and Rose under the tarp, picked up her rifle, and walked all the way around it to kick their butts to Betelgeuse!”

“Are you sure?” asked one of the younger captains. “Isn’t she—”

“Completely sure!” she said quickly. She was slightly drunk just off the fumes hanging in the air, or possibly on the fact that everyone else was now drunk. More research needed. “We, of course, being the intrepid pirates we are, snuck out to watch her sit Dirk on a rock and tell him that she would show him how it was done, before politely knocking on the hatch and telling them in horrible Alternian to suck a grub frond.”

“It was really more like ‘put their teeth on sweet grub mother appendage,’” Jake improvised. “Then they came out and before they could even shoot, she socked one in the face and kicked the other’s legs right out from under her! Then she hopped into the scout and flew off back to Dash!”

“When Roxy couldn’t find us she thought we were under the tarp,” Rose said, “so when we came back, out of breath and sweating, we had to pretend we had gotten into a fight.”

“Who’s takin’ my name in vain?” Roxy sidled over to lean on Jakes shoulder and squint around at the group. “Rosie, are you telling lies to malan, malign, my good reputations in fron’of all these wonnerful folks?”

“No ma’am, Miss Captain ma’am.” Rose pulled off a crisp solute any troll would be proud of, and Roxy patted her on the head fondly. “I was just telling these wonderful folks about the time when you took out an Alternian scout barehanded and then stole it.”

“Well. That sounds like… a bit of in, an, exagration.” Jake was shaking his head at her, grimacing, but she appeared not to get the message. “Mostly I accident’ly shot one of ‘em in the leg and then the other one tripped, yeah. And then I ran like hell right inta their ship. So I thought well this is nice, might as well take this, so I flew ‘er back to Dash to tow home.”

“And were you angry at them?” asked the skeptical officer, jerking his head and Rose and Jake.

“Fer what?” Roxy was now draped over Jake’s shoulders like a cat in danger of falling down at any moment.

“For following you!”

“Or getting in a fight,” John supplied, grinning.

Roxy squinted in confusion, and was about to clear things up when Jake decided this would not be to his and Rose’s benefit and changed the subject. “Roxy, m’dear, why don’t you sit down and have a bit of a rest? You look wiped out, dead on your feet!”

Roxy rolled her eyes to make it absolutely clear she knew what he was actually doing, but plopped down on the bench and laid her legs with exaggerated care across his lap. “The day I get wiped out by a coupla drinks is the day I give up on life,” she mumbled.

“And by a couple,” said one of Jane’s officers, “she means nine.”

“Shut up,” mumbled Roxy into her own knees, leaning into Jake’s chest. “I haven’ ‘ad decen drank ‘n, like. Mnnms.” Jake peered theatrically down at her, then looked back up and nodded at everyone.

“Out cold!” he whispered loudly through a giant grin. “I think we should get on back to Dash and let Roxy sleep it off. She’s not used to having so much booze at once any more!” Rose jumped up as Jake was saying his goodbyes (many a manful hand clasp was shared) to tell Dirk they were leaving.

She found him leaning against the wall of a little booth table, talking quietly to Jane. Both had fond, reminiscent smiles plastered to their faces, or in Dirk’s case his severely understated equivalent, and not for the first time Rose wondered how her guardians had become such good friends with a Terran Fleet commander.

Rose coughed quietly, trying to look elegant yet discreet, and they both looked up almost guiltily. “Our dear Captain Roxy has passed out, so we’re heading back to the ship. Are you coming, or do you want to pal around a little longer?”

Dirk looked back at Jane, who put her hand over his. “I’ll stay here for a while. Make sure to wake up early tomorrow, since we’re going to be dealing with some sketchy characters and you have to watch Dash.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Sweet dreams.”

Jake was waiting patiently by the door, his and Roxy’s coats cradled on top of her stomach. “Ready to go?” he whispered. Rose nodded and pulled on her own coat before holding the door open for Jake to go through.

The streets were quieter now, and darker without so much glowing clothing (which had made more difference than the setting sun in any case). It was several kilometers back to the Dashwave, one of Roxy’s more irritating precautions if it hadn’t been for Jake’s ridiculous size—Roxy was a full head taller than Rose, and Jake carried her as if she were a kitten. If it weren’t for Dirk’s training on how to use her opponents’ size against them, and the fact that she could best Jake in a fair fight two times out of five, she would have been incredibly jealous.

As it was she had good reason to be glad that Roxy was unconscious. Four thugs had appeared, as Jake was standing in the middle of an alley trying to figure out how they were supposed to get back to the port district, brandishing small heat guns. 

“Got cash?” asked one of them. “Got blood? Wanna keep it?”

Roxy, even without being drunk and/or asleep, was usually a liability in close range battles, so Jake set her down against the wall and he and Rose moved to shield her.

These midnight marauders were four of the very few Rose had seen with no light on them, although to be fair she probably didn’t see most of the unlit citizens of Thos-at. Regrettably this made them hard to follow, and they had the advantage because Rose was wearing a white shirt. So she pulled her Needles out of her belt and turned them on, their crackling purple-white light illuminating and, hopefully, blinding their attackers.

“Yes, yes, and yes,” said Rose. It wasn’t the wittiest of replies but it would have to do.

As the largest was blinking away spots she put a laser through his right eye, and when he screamed she kicked him in the general direction of one of the others. She was pleased to note that while they had been momentarily distracted, Jake had backhanded one of the thugs closest to him.

Someone grabbed her arm and wrenched her around—one of them had gotten behind her. Rose slammed her head backward into the woman’s face, but met only pain. Damn, she was wearing some sort of visor. The woman shifted her grip until she was holding both of Rose’s hands; one still had a Needle in it and was now pointed at Jake, who had the last attacker in a headlock. Rose found a heat gun pressed to her head, for the umpteenth time since she had first been allowed on a raid at the tender age of twelve. There was a moment of stillness, only her heartbeat and the woman’s breathing loud in her ears.

Rose slammed her head downward, hard and teeth first, biting the restraining hand to the bone. She thought she heard the heat gun drop and spun around with a kick ready, landing it neatly in the woman’s solar plexus.

Jake had picked up Roxy and was standing at the entrance of the alley, this time impatient. Rose scrabbled for her needles and sprinted to him with blood dripping from her mouth. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to swallow someone else’s blood in order to breathe, but she spat out the scraps of flesh.

The rest of the way to the port district, which got longer due to their somewhat frantic inattention to detail, was spent on main streets with comparatively good lighting. What few people were still walking the streets after midnight ignored them, for the most part— Thos-at wasn’t exactly one of the best-policed cities on the planet. The port district, thankfully, was the safest part of it since most of the ships contained valuable cargo. Inspectors looked askance at them but, thank god, Roxy had brought the Dashwave’s papers naming Jake as her co-captain, so they were allowed to pass.

Dash was a haven, soothing paranoia and injuries both (albeit in different ways). Roxy, unharmed, was deposited in her bunk and Jake and Rose cleaned up in the tiny bathroom. Jake was uniquely suited for this because not only was he the ship’s doctor, but also the most classically motherly of Rose’s guardians. Dirk had taught her to fight and think, Roxy to live and fly, and Jake… whatever mothers were supposed to teach you. Accept herself, probably. As far as she knew, none of her close friends had mothers or fathers: Jade was an orphan, Kanaya was a troll. Aaand that was all of them.

Rose took from Jake the bloody rag she’d been using to wipe her mouth and stared at it blankly, leaning on his shoulder. “I suppose it’s a good thing after all that I have guard duty tomorrow,” she said. “It’s quite shocking how after two months being stuck on this ship one can so quickly become reluctant to leave again.”

“You shouldn’t think like that, Rose.” He put an arm around her. “When you live in a tin can in space, you ought to see as many worlds as you can!”

“Even if some of them want to kill you?” she murmured.

“Probably especially them,” Jake said. “You learn how to avoid it.” She didn’t bother to tell him that murder wasn’t even half the reason she disliked going to populated planets.

\--

Dirk had clearly come home late last night, or early this morning; when Rose woke, half her face hot and damp from sleeping on Jake’s chest, Dirk was sitting at his workbench doing semi-incomprehensible things with a soldering iron. He had the air of one who had not slept at all for over a day, his usually precise movements no less so but limp and slow.

“Morning, Rosie,” he drawled without looking around. Her whole upper body hurt, the bruises on her neck throbbing and a the horribly familiar taste of old blood on her tongue.

“Good morning,” she said quietly, pushing herself up off Jake, who turned over to push his face into the ratty cushion under him. They had fallen asleep on the tiny couch in the common area, old and almost two feet too short for him to lie down. “You’ll be leaving soon, I suppose?”

“Yep. As soon as Roxy wakes up we’ll rent a bike or something. Do you want us to buy you some food? We should be back by 1300 local time.”

Rose intensely missed the disgustingly greasy street food that was all they had been able to afford when she was young, even though she knew it had kept them on the edge of malnutrition and/or heart disease. “I’d like a bowl of fried grubs, extra hot sauce. And make sure it’s still warm when you bring it back.”

Dirk spun around on his stool to salute lazily with the soldering gun. “Yes ma’am. Would you be so kind as to fetch our illustrious captain?”

This turned out to be unnecessary, as Roxy stumbled out of the dorm area as Rose was rising out of the armchair. “Diiiiiiirk. Why did you let me drink so much after, like, one and a half months of no alcohol?”

“Because I respect your adult responsibility to take care of yourself and/or get slobbering drunk, whichever you see fit. Also, you were having a lot of fun. Shall we go for a jog to the bike rental to clear your head?” Roxy groaned loudly and slumped onto Dirk’s back, hanging over on the top and bottom by about five centimeters each. In response he stood and walked with her into the airlock and outside. “Back in a couple hours,” he called as the door whooshed shut.

Rose set about making breakfast with the supplies they had bought the day before (pre-carousing): sticky rice boiled with coconut milk, and some kind of juicy orange fruit reminiscent of a papaya. Predictably, Jake smelled it soon enough, and tromped into the kitchen block cheerfully, still in his sweaty tee shirt. She became aware that she smelled of him, and probably of drink as well, so when she finished eating the first order of business was to take a shower.

When she emerged, toweling her now-lavender-scented hair, Jake looked up from some kind of news magazine to complain that they never got to stay in hotels when they were planetside.

“Which would you rather have,” said Rose, “a hotel, or food and a ship that isn’t likely to fall apart?” She perched carefully on the arm of the couch and snatched the magazine. “Now go take a shower yourself.”

He left Rose to the common block, where she began sorting the detritus of two months’ living on the run into neat piles (for immediate use, to be thrown away, put in proper place). Although she wanted to organize Dirk’s bench, where in his haste to leave he had left an unusual mess, she didn’t. Instead she shoveled the “throw away” pile into a bag and went outside to find a dumpster. No doubt later she would need Jake’s help getting rid of the compacted garbage that couldn’t be turned into fuel.

They spent the rest of the morning neatening up, doing things that could only be done planetside, and working out in the sunlight instead of the smelly cargo hold. Around an hour after the stellar zenith Dirk and Roxy returned with copious quantities of fried grubs over noodles and a new commission from one of the mafias of Thos. They would set out later in the week for the Centra System, whose planets and cities all had names. 

This lifted Rose’s spirits, because it meant that they would get to stay on Thos for a little while longer (how she had missed the sun, any sun!) and that she stood a chance of seeing Jade, who was currently based on a moon of Centra II (much easier to remember than the weird, mythologically-derived name by which Centrans knew it). She sent a message to Jade informing her of their imminent proximity, and to check that she was still in the same place.

Then they went to see the sights and buy some “hellacious rad new togs,” as Roxy put it, mangling colloquialisms being something of a hobby of hers. Jake made Dirk promise not to let them be so stupid as to go off without him, but Dirk said, “Yeah, I think you’ll be fine. Didn’t you kick approximately half a ton of butt last night? Rosie’s shaping up to be just like her old man.”

“Mans,” said Jake. Rose didn’t bother to correct him.


	2. In Which Rose Meets Several Very Strange Persons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naturally, the cargo retrieval doesn't go quite right.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Roxy muttered to herself, feverishly checking the monitors surrounding her. “Rosie, we can’t just lug this shit around anymore. They’re gonna catch up!”

“Can’t we outpace them?” Rose leaned over to stare at the tracking screen. The blue dots behind their triangle were alarmingly close.

“They’re corsairs, of course not. Goddamn Vriska and her goddamn awesome flashy ships. Also their goddamn not having a lot of cargo to carry and also a lot more fuel. Lots of things to goddamn today.”

“Might I propose a smaller, more maneuverable ship take the cargo? The Dashwave has plenty of guns to hold off a few corsairs.”

“I’m not so worried about the corsairs as the mothership they’ll call after they surround us.”

“Then… if you dock with the mothership and she finds out you haven’t got the cargo? I don’t think she’ll kill you.”

“She might cripple Dash… but I think I can talk her out of it.” Roxy turned to look at Rose over her shoulder with a smirk. “If you know what I mean.”

“If I didn’t before, you have now made it abundantly clear,” said Rose, stifling a chuckle. “May I volunteer to tow the goods?”

Roxy’s face fell. “Rose, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Look, you know Dirk and Jake can’t fly for shit,” said Rose, leaning into Roxy’s chair. “I’m the only one who can do it.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” said Dirk from the doorway. Rose colored slightly, hoping he hadn’t heard her saying he couldn’t fly. He winked at her. “Jake and I are both needed here to man the guns, and I need to make sure nothing breaks down.”

“What if they catch her anyway? What if Vriska gets Rose and the cargo?”

“What if you treat Rose like someone who knows what she’s doing?”

Embarrassed and uncomfortable with what was clearly about to turn into a shouting match, Rose tiptoed out of the bridge and went to find Jake.

It turned out that he was cataloguing medical supplies near the port gun block—“I need you to help me move the cargo to the tug and hook it up. Roxy’s going to hold the corsairs here while I take it to the rendezvous.”

He jumped slightly when she started talking, but stood and went to drag the enormous tarp-wrapped bundle on its dolly over to the dinghy. “Good luck, Rose, and be careful. I’ll open the airlock in two minutes, and then I s’pose I’ve got to run back over to the guns. See you on Woden!”

Rose threw him a crisp salute and climbed into the cockpit, after checking the hookup once more. Go time.

Roxy had wheeled the Dashwave around to face the corsairs, so that when the tug was ejected Rose got a boost away and Roxy further toward them. As she checked the back monitors, Rose saw the Dashwave firing on a corsair trying to pursue her, causing it to jet back sharply with its frontal propulsion. Perfect.

It wasn’t until she had gone several hundred kilometers toward Centra that she realized one of the corsairs was following after all. She cursed and veered away from it, to starboard. She should be able to evade it long enough for Dashwave to come to her rescue.

She had miscalculated. Without noticing, she had entered an asteroid field that had plainly been pulverized recently; instead of large rocks kilometers apart there was stuff the size of large stones spread evenly around, making visibility very poor. The corsair shot, missed, shot, missed—hit. The pilot had probably been aiming at the tugline, because her cargo went sailing off somewhere to her left. She wheeled and sped toward a larger asteroid just onscreen, breaking off at the last second to loop upward.

The corsair crashed spectacularly—an amateur, probably. Vriska’s ranks had very high turnover in certain sections. Rose flicked on the radio. “Have dealt with pursuing corsair, captain. In pursuit of the package, and will meet you on Woden.”

“Rose, what—” She flicked off the radio, not willing to deal with Roxy at a point that demanded so much concentration.

She had spoken too soon, though—a chunk of asteroid came flying improbably into the tug, and the intercom went static as klaxons began blaring HULL DAMAGE HULL DAMAGE and STEERING THRUSTERS DISABLED. “NO!” shouted Rose, furious, pounding on the console, but… anger would do her no good now. She breathed deeply. The thrusters still worked well enough to land her, if she was careful. She maneuvered toward a particularly large asteroid relatively nearby, about half a kilometer wide and one long. She eased the tug down onto it, pulse pumping as she checked the rear screen again for any more pursuers. She couldn’t see any anywhere, thank stars. All she had to do now was not die, repair the tug, figure out where her cargo was, and reclaim it. Awesome.

Rose powered the ship down to standby and just sat in the cockpit for a few seconds, eyes closed, to try to calm her breathing. After a few minutes, she stood slowly and went to the airlock, where there were two suits and about twelve hours of oxygen. There might be something useful on this rock, and even if there wasn’t she had to do something. So she dressed herself laboriously, made sure the suit’s shoes were securely hooked, and went outside.

Now that her headlights were off, everything was dark except the small oval where her flashlight fell, because the asteroid field was so far from any star. She inhaled deeply. She was going to die here.

Fine. She was going to die. Nothing to be upset about. She walked, carefully hooking her boots in at every step, to the other side of the asteroid, which was dimly lit by Centra. She could see the rest of the field, dark against the starry sky, enormous and alone.

Or… not as alone as she’d thought? She could see the headlights of another ship on the debris of the old asteroid, much larger than the corsair. Really, she would have taken a ride from Vriska herself, as long as it would get her off this rock. So she turned her flashlight up to its highest setting, pointed it at the ship, and flashed it rapidly. Had they…? Yes! It had turned, and after a few minutes she could see that it was coming closer. Rose did not stop flashing until it had landed not a hundred meters away from where she stood, and then ran toward it as quickly as caution would allow.

By the time she drew even with the ship, a door had opened in the side, and a suited figure came out on a line. On the public short-range channel, she received what sounded like a cough and a crackly “Testing?”

“Hello,” said Rose, holding back the relief that threatened to flood into her voice. “I seem to have crashed my ship on this asteroid. I don’t suppose you could help?”

\--

The ship was only slightly smaller than Vodka Dashwave; inside, the walls were covered in crude drawings done in red paint, and every corner had a pile of junk food wrappers. It just screamed “human bachelor pad,” which is why Rose was surprised to learn that two of the crew were trolls, and one of those a woman. 

“I’m Terezi Pyrope,” said the captain, who was wearing red-lensed goggles of the kind aviators had in old movies, holding out one clawed hand. Rose took it tentatively, and started in surprise when Pyrope pulled Rose’s hand up to her own mouth and licked the palm. “Hm! Floral, kind of bitter. I’ll call you Ms. Herb Tea.”

“My name is Rose,” she said, “in case you were interested.”

“Not really!” said Pyrope cheerfully, relinquishing Rose’s hand. She wiped it on her leggings without bothering to be surreptitious. “This is Sollux, my mate.” Whether she meant “first mate,” “best mate,” or “someone I mate with” was completely unclear. In any case, Sollux stood gangly and sullen behind her, with an extra set of horns and one eye each flat red and unsettling electronic blue. His face was flushed a sickly mustard, making him look like a sallow shut-in by human standards.

“Hi,” he muttered, looking as if he wished she would expire.

“No, no,” said Rose. “The pleasure is all mine.” Pyrope snickered, but Sollux threw himself disinterestedly down onto a beanbag chair.

“He’s pretty tired,” Pyrope explained with a shark grin (Rose couldn’t tell whether she had extra rows of teeth behind the first one, but she wouldn’t be at all surprised). “He just hauled in this enormous chunk of stuff, probably around five hundred kilos.”

What else could that possibly be other than the alloy the Thosin mafia had asked them to haul? She tried not to change her expression as she said, “That’s surprising, considering he looks like a pretzel stick. i.e., salty, brittle, and not something you want at a party.”

Pyrope barked a laugh. “Oh, my boy doesn’t move stuff with his hands! His pretty little fingers would snap! He’s a psionic.” Rose raised her eyebrows. “It’s true! He’s very tired right now but maybe later…”

“Fuck you, TZ,” growled Sollux from where he had slumped almost to the horizontal on his beanbag. His enormous fangs caused him to lisp horribly. “I may be tired, but I’m not a fragile fucking athhhole flower like you think.” Pyrope winked at Rose as if to say, Reverse psychology! Works every time! as lightning crackled out of Sollux’s eyes, matching their unnerving colors. He pointed at what looked like a bucket of instant cement, to which the lightning jumped immediately and caused to do several flips before falling back to the floor with a thump. A small amount of powder spilled out.

Sollux slumped backward, head lolling almost upside down. “UGH. Why do I always have to thow off? Now I have a giant headache. Fucking thankth, TZ.”

“I think we should leave my little cream puff to his beauty sleep,” Pyrope whispered loudly. “Let’s go find Mr. Cherry.”

Mr. Cherry, it transpired, was the human who had met Rose on the asteroid, dark skin contrasting starkly with his bleached hair (he had even bleached his eyebrows, and that took either a lot of dedication to a schtick or incredible vanity; Rose was willing to bet that he had both). He wore dark glasses through which she could barely see his eyes, putting her in mind of Dirk and the welding mask he liked way too much.

The human introduced himself as Dave Strider with a flourishing bow, and attempted to kiss Rose’s hand. “You probably don’t want to do that,” she pointed out. “That’s the one your captain licked.” He shrugged and let it go, like he was pretty used to this.

Rose turned to Pyrope. “I have a favor I’d like to ask of you.”

“Oh yes?” The shark grin was back again. “I love it when people owe me favors. Do go on.”

“My tug is on the other side of this asteroid, and I was really hoping I’d be able to bring it home so my… mechanic can fix it.” (She’d debated over father, guardian, brother, and none of them sounded right) “I’m prepared to offer you fifteen hundred credit.”

Pyrope raised her expressive eyebrows. “And where are you going to get that?” 

“Let me just say that I and mine have certain illicit sources of money, and leave it at that.”

“You’re a pirate!” She looked delighted. “So am I, and I love money almost as much as I love my darling crew members. I accept!”

“How perfectly delightful,” Rose said. “I would like to go to Woden.”

\--

When they got within hailing distance of Centra II, or whatever it was called, Rose got on the radio to speak to Dirk. “Are you there?”

It was Jake’s astonished voice that greeted her. “Rose? Thank goodness you’re alive! Roxy almost got so angry she threw up, and then she almost cried so much she threw up! Now I think she’s trying to do the same thing with drinking. I’ll tell her you’re okay, but what’s going on?”

Pyrope was loitering casually nearby, obviously listening in, so she’d have to be careful exactly what she said. “I got stranded on an asteroid and got lucky enough to get picked up by some smugglers who were passing through. Did you know, they have a psionic who can lift five hundred kilos of cargo with his mind?” That would have to be enough of a hint. If only she were talking to… “Tell Dirk that, would you? I’m sure he would appreciate it. Anyway, they’ve agreed to tow the tug back to Woden because I promised them fifteen hundred credit. Um, sad to say, I think you understand where that will have to come from.”

“You mean, the job? But I thought you lost—”

“No, that’s taken care of.” He was exactly as dense as she had thought he was, or as she had hoped he wasn’t. “Look, just tell Dirk everything I told you, all right? We should be there in a couple of hours.”

“Do you want to talk to—”

“I have to go, Jake. Goodbye.”

She turned off the radio with a sigh. “God, my friends are all kind of inane. Or insane. So what do we do now?” This last was addressed to Dave Strider, who had taken Pyrope’s place in the doorway and was absentmindedly flipping some kind of coin over the backs of his fingers.

“We hang, chill, you know. Got any good stories? Life is, like, mega boring if you’re actually a good pirate ‘cause no-one ever finds you.”

“Are you insinuating that my crew are substandard pirates?”

“Nah, just, I mean, how’d you get stranded on an asteroid in interstellar space? That’s gotta be a fun story.”

“Have you ever heard of Vriska Serket?” Rose asked, settling in on one of the desks to overembellish another mostly-true tale. She needed the practice, after all, if she was ever going to be accepted in impolite company.

Dave Strider stiffened and shook his head. “Man, you don’t say that name on this ship. Pro-tip from me to you. TZ’s hella sharp on Serket.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I dunno, she won’t tell me what happened between them and I guess she’s got Captor on a vow of silence.” Captor. So that was his surname. It reminded her of something she’d read in an old book once. “As far as I can tell, they used to be best friends, kickin’ asses and takin’ names together in their BFF ass-kickin’ notebook. Then it turned out Serket was a giant tentacle dick and TZ ditched her.” Strider shrugged. “You want a putrescent bite on your ass, you ask her.” He paused, then suddenly seemed to remember that he had been asking for a story. “But what’s that got to do with you?”

“She and my guardian are rivals in the piracy business. As far as I can tell they got into a fight over a load of ore when they were both rookies, and had so much fun that they decided to pester each other whenever one of them was trying to pull off a job.”

Strider chuckled. “Sick. So she was hassling you and she blew your itty bitty little boat into an asteroid?”

“Nobody has used ‘sick’ as a synonym for ‘excellent’ for about three hundred years, Strider. Also, our ship is much larger than the tug. Surely you didn’t think I lived in that thing?”

“I wasn’t gonna dismiss the possibility completely. Anyway, did she get your stuff? That you were hauling, I mean.”

“No.” That was all she could say without giving the game away. “But enough about me. Surely something interesting must have happened to you in all the time you’ve been smuggling?”

For the next three-odd hours Rose listened to (and provided commentary on) Dave Strider talking about the misadventures of his ship, which she learned had a different name depending on who you were talking to. Dave called it the Broken Record, which sounded more like a sleazy bar than a smuggling ship; Pyrope, Senator Lemonsnout, for some obscure reason; and Captor simply “the ship,” or “this legendary fucking piece of shit” if he was feeling particularly grumpy, giving rise to the one name that they could all sometimes agree on, the LPOS. (“It’s spelled shitheap,” he said, “but the t-h-e-a is silent.”)

Rose learned that Sollux Captor hated most people indiscriminately, but that “that’s probably fair since he’s a genius.” She also learned that Terezi Pyrope was a genius, but in the way that allowed her to cackle loudly and lick things on a whim, although Rose was fairly sure she could have intuited this. In any case, Dave was a surprisingly good conversational partner considering he talked like a frat boy from an old movie. When they landed on Woden he was telling her about Alternian slam poetry, and how he had somehow thought of it first despite its “ancient art” status.

When the ramp slid down, and Rose walked into air that didn’t taste like metal and puffed grain with artificial cheese, it was a blessing. The port district on Woden was so small that she could smell the food only a few streets away. However, she admonished herself, she should focus on finding Roxy and Dirk and telling them her plan. If they didn’t come back with that cargo, they might never be allowed on Thos again.

As it turned out, they were waiting for her very nearby; Roxy scooped her into a bone-crushing hug about a foot off the ground. That was all right. Loath as she was to admit it, Rose had missed human contact in the short while she’d been away from her family.

“They have our cargo but they don’t know it’s ours, or don’t know we know,” whispered Rose urgently directly into Roxy’s ear. “We’ll have to take it back by force, probably, since I promised them money out of the profits.”

Roxy smiled and set her back down with a kiss on the head. Way to maintain a professional image, Lalonde. “Eh, chillax. We’ve got this taken care of.” She strode over to Pyrope, who was emerging from her ship, and said loudly, “Hey! So you know how you hauled Rosie back home? First thanks for that.” Pyrope inclined her head. “Also I don’t know how to break it to you but that cargo is ours, we just happened to drop it.”

Pyrope’s eyes behind their red goggles narrowed. “You might be able to guess why I don’t believe you.”

“Yeah.” Roxy jerked her head noncommittally to the side. “But we can actually prove it. Under one corner of the tarp there should be instructions with my name on them.”

Pyrope disappeared into the ship and reemerged with Dave, both towing the cargo. “It appears that what you say is true, Captain Lalonde. But pray tell, why should I give it to you?”

So fast it barely registered, Roxy whipped the rifle off her back and flicked off the safety. “’Cause I’ve got a gun pointed at your head.”

“Why, Captain!” cried Pyrope, sounding for some bizarre reason utterly delighted. “I think the two of us shall be great friends! After I get my quarter cut, of course.”

“Of course.” Roxy turned around. “Hey boys! Come out and haul this thing back to Dash!” To Pyrope, she said, “Where will you be in about eight hundred fifty hours? We should have got back to Thos and got paid by then.”

“I shall be wherever you wish me to be! I am extremely amenable when I have been promised credit.”

“Arright, then why don’t you…” Rose tuned out. Negotiations, while necessary, were boring, and she wanted to take her leave properly of Pyrope’s crew, if only for psychological study and manipulation. Dave had recently emerged from the ramp and seemed to be sniping at Dirk—that was fine. She hoped they had a godawful rap battle and got famous on Grubtube. 

She went to find Sollux Captor.

He was hunched over a terminal on the bridge, the floor around him littered with spent energy drinks. He didn’t look up when he heard her footsteps, but she began anyway: “I’ve had a wonderful time on your ship, Mr. Captor. I thank you effusively for being as good a host as I’ve ever met, and making me feel so welcome here. I came back because I wish to shake you warmly by the hand.”

Captor spun around slowly on his chair, thick eyebrows raised. Could she detect a hint of a smirk on his face? “You’re tho welcome, Your Grathe, I’m glad to have had the amathing opportunity to bask in your prethenthe.” He snorted. “I need to practithe that. Anyway, pithh off, I have work to do.”

Rose made a mocking bow and exited. She really didn’t know what she’d expected. Behind her she could hear an awful nasal laugh like ngyehehehe.

In any case, next was to visit Dave, who she found dueling Dirk on top of one of the docks, sword to wrench. He had to be some kind of pretentious history buff to have a sword, but he was really good with it. Not many people could take on Dirk Lalonde and hold their ground.

“When is Jade expecting us?” she called, stopping them in the midst of an exchange. “I know you two are having some kind of male bonding time, but I’m sure Pyrope is eventually going to want to take off again.”

Dirk relaxed and swung his wrench over his shoulder, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his other hand. “Rox told Jade we’d show up whenever, she knows how we are. We also explained that you may have been taken captive by other pirates and that we might have to mount a rescue mission.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “I’ll call her, then, shall I? I look forward to seeing you again, Strider. You have something to teach us all about retrohipsterism.”

“Fuck you too, Lalonde. Seeya later.” Dave sloped off, somehow managing to give the impression that he was immediately bored by the conversation and at the same time advertising himself to any available singles in the area. He vaulted off the edge of the dock onto a lower one, and from there the top of his ship.

“What a little asshole,” said Dirk. “Good with a sword, but that doesn’t really help his case.

“He reminds me of Roxy,” said Rose. “They both even bleach their hair.”

“Lots of people bleach their hair, Rose. It’s the fashion these days.”

“How much do you want to bet he was doing it before it was cool?”

“Eh, how about fifteen hundred?”


	3. In Which Interstellar Space is Frustratingly Large

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sollux talks politics.

Jade was utterly thrilled to see Rose, having already been with the rest of the crew for almost a day while they worried. She was perhaps half again Rose’s height and quite possibly twice her weight, and Rose found herself in the undignified position of being twirled around in her best friend’s arms, as she was every time they met.

Attempting to restrain a grin, she said, “It’s good to see you, too, Jade.”

“Man! I keep forgetting how much I miss you till I see you again! Come in and see this new robot I built. It is rad to the max, as they say on the interweb!” It was indeed impressive, a delicate hovercraft that looked like a dragonfly. “It’s fully automated,” Jade said proudly. “You just have to give it coordinates, and it will get there however! I’m making a lot of good progress on the AI.” She started sifting through the machine parts strewn all over the bench, coming up with a remote control device. “Oh, yeah, it shoots lasers, too!”

“Perhaps not inside, though?” Rose stepped back away from the hovercraft, raising her eyebrows.

“Aw, no, don’t be afraid. Right now it’s programmed not to shoot heat sources with the approximate temperature of humans.”

Dirk, who had evidently not seen it yet (had he been busy calming down Roxy?), stepped up to offer it a hand, where it landed apparently of its own accord. “Very nice,” he said approvingly. “This AI is pretty good, considering what yours was like last time we checked in here.” He released it with a little push, sending it upward to settle on top of a floor lamp.

“Thanks! Oh, did I mention it seeks light, since it has a camera? It’s transmitting to my computer right now.” Jade rushed over to a monitor surrounded by stacked plates and silverware, motioning for them to see the program she had just opened. “Look! That’s us!” She waved to the hovercraft, and the tiny Jade on the screen did likewise. “Hiiii!”

Rose chuckled. “It certainly is impressive. How have you been, other than busy?”

“Mostly busy,” replied Jade. “But also really happy! I love working as a mechanic. It’s way better than it used to be when I was a stowaway, because now people actually pay me for it, and I’ve learned a lot about so many different kinds of ships! Plus, Bec is happy. He mostly runs around all day then comes home for steak and snuggles.”

Probably responding to its name, an enormous white husky trotted in from Jade’s bedroom, wagging its tail. “Whosagoodboy?” Jade ruffled its ears violently and hugged it around the neck. “Bububububu, you are, Bec! Say hi to Rose and Dirk!” Taking hold of the dog’s head from the chin, Jade went into a deep, gruff voice: “Hi guys. I am a dog. Hello!” Bec pulled its head away in irritation, but licked Jade’s fingers soundly. “He won’t be able to come on the ship, will he?”

“What?” asked Rose, shaking herself out of the reverie induced by Jade’s unquenchable enthusiasm. “Why should he have to?”

“You’re going to Thos, aren’t you?” At Rose’s nod of assent, she continued, “I want to come! I haven’t seen you for about two years, and anyway I need a vacation.”

“We would be honored to have you,” said Rose, “but it’s true that you will have to find someone to take care of Bec.”

“Nah.” Jade shrugged carelessly. “He’ll be fine on his own for a week or five. He’ll miss me, but he knows I’ll come back, and he needs to guard my house. Will you do that, buddy?” She turned back to the dog, hands pillared on her knees. “Willya?” Bec licked her face several times. “Aww, you’re the best! C’mere!”

As Jade was absorbed in vigorously rubbing the dog, Rose turned to raise her eyebrows at Dirk. He cracked a smirk and tilted his head as if to say, Hasn’t changed a bit, has she? 

“We’d like to leave as soon as possible,” said Rose.

“How does an hour sound?” Jade looked up from where she was draped across her dog. “Go have yourselves some lunch while I pack. Guess I should do the dishes too, huh? I don’t want this place to smell like a week-old corpse when I get back.” She grimaced, then got to her knees to make a shooing motion.

“You know where the ship is,” said Dirk as they left. “Be there or be square.”

“Really, Dirk?” Rose made a face at him. “You’re as bad as that Strider kid.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s older than you,” said Dirk. “Just saying.”

\--

As it transpired, they were to have more new companions than Jade on the journey; Pyrope quickly expressed her intention to follow them closely to “make sure there is no funny business!” This seemed acceptable, since Rose assumed that there would be no interaction with the LPOS except when they stopped to refuel. 

She was wrong. Dave Strider called her every ten hours or so, usually with the opening line, “So I’ve been working on my raps, and you gotta hear this…” Rose tolerated them more for their ingenuity than the quality of the rhyme or rhythm; he had a penchant for inventing new words that simultaneously made complete sense and no sense at all, which he then invariably used to force a rhyme out of the mangled Interstellar he so tortured.

Often he needed no more encouragement than the occasional confirmation that Rose was still on the other end of the line, so she often sat down with a tablet to take notes on his psychology as represented through his words. It was nice to have a new subject, since she had studied her family so thoroughly as to leave no surprises. Dave Strider was almost an enigma, with his semi-opaque nonchalance on top, and several more layers of the same underneath. The most telling items were that he called at all and the way he could and would talk for hours before getting even close to running out of things to say.

Sometimes Jade joined her to poke fun at him, and those times were more like conversations. Jade and Dave were almost equally loquacious, one out of all-purpose excitement and the other pretense, and they entertained each other greatly.

After they had exhausted Dave’s babbling they quickly did whatever chore they could muster as an excuse, and retired to the dorm block. Usually this involved painting on Jade’s tablets—they were very nice, since she needed to be able to rough out schematics quickly—or writing stories, or making fun of Dave, or talking about politics, or any number of things.

Sometimes when Jade and Dirk were puzzling out some fiddly mechanical detail of tug repair in the common block, Rose would sit and read near them, enjoying the atmosphere of intense concentration; or practice her figure drawing on their oblivious shoulders, tilted toward whatever problem they were working on. 

Sadly, there were some problems that even Dirk, who professed himself a computer genius, could not fix. The ship’s main computer system had picked up a terrible virus somewhere, possibly courtesy of some hilarious asshole on inspection at the docks, and it was eating away slowly at the connection between the ship and her controls. They hadn’t noticed until Roxy tried to steer them out of the way of an unseen burnt-out ghost ship, and it had screeched its way along the hull and several of the thrusters.

They’d gotten online with Pyrope and asked her to tow them to the nearest inhabited planetoid, which turned out to be only a few hundred thousand kilometers away. Once Jade had repaired the damage, they gained a new companion on the Dashwave when Captor agreed to fix their problem in exchange for an entire kilo of spicy grub puffs.

When he had restored all the system controls, and put up walls to stop them getting hijacked again, they resumed their flight—Pyrope was eager to get her credit and leave as soon as possible—now with a pissy programmer who covered his keyboards in Flamin’ Hot! flavor dust.

Occasionally Rose could coax him into conversation, when his wrists gave out and he had to take a break from stabbing code into the terminal. He was actually pretty fun to talk to if he could be lead onto subjects Rose knew passing well; he had an incredible store of completely useless and esoteric knowledge, only about half of which pertained to computers.

One day (disregarding arguments about the appropriateness of the term, considering that the last two planetoids they’d visited had days of 13 and 49 hours respectively) she managed to get him talking on the subject of modern Alternian culture and its place in the interstellar political system. This was a fairly unknown topic to her, but once he got into it, it began to make sense.

“Obviouthly at the point where the Empire wath flying around killing everything we hadn’t met any other thentient thpethieth that could really challenge uth, tho we jutht got right down to quelling rebellionth and whatever. Thadly for the Emprethh, I guethh, the Terranth wouldn’t put up with that thhit and they could actually match uth in termth of tech and weaponth, tho we bathically had to go to war. Thinthe that’th, you know, our thpethieth’ entire mechanic.”

“Old news, Captor,” Rose said with a well-raised eyebrow. “That’s the same thing you can get from every history feed shown to a five-year-old.” It gave her a minor headache to talk to him, only mostly because of the difficulty of deciphering his lisp.

“The background ith important, okay? ANYWAY, trollth are athhholeth when we’re defeated, tho we thigned the Treaty of Thirruth and kept on doing exactly what we’d been doing, but thneakier. Ethhentially, bathically all trollth are bitter they have to play nithe, and the Alternian military motht of all thinthe it’th now like a thouthandth of how big it uthed to be. A lot of them are upthet that the treaty banned uthing helmthmen to power shipth, thinthe we never invented really fatht travel on our own tho now we have to knock off yourth.”

“And this affects us how?” she asked. “The news never says anything alarming about uprisings, and a lot of humans are just as bloody-minded. Nominally, Terra and Alternia are co-rulers of half the galaxy.”

“That ith what they thay, but the Terran command knowth Alternian culture ith thubthuming native culture on every planetoid they can get their clawth on, like how bathically everyone now utheth the quadrant thythtem even if they don’t have the biology for it. Even Alternian gender roleth have thtarted leaking into other cultureth; it didn’t uthed to be that men were thuppothed to thtay inthide and do mechanical work, at leatht for humanth. And did you ever notithe how fashion on a lot of planetth includeth highblood colorth ath a thign of thtatuth even in human clothing?” She wrote down the bit about highblood colors in fashion, for Kanaya. Perhaps she had already noticed, or perhaps they could discuss it next time Rose had a web connection. Noticing this, and her amused smile, he coughed and rolled his eyes, looking somewhat embarrassed.

“Yeah, anyway, the Terranth don’t really bother to thtop it, thinthe it getth them what they want in the end—bathically total domination over minority thpethieth. It’th kind of like the Terran government ith uthing Alternian brutality to keep everyone in line tho they can claim the moral high ground. Then when Alternianth get uppity they thtep in and dethtroy a couple fleetth tho they don’t get ideath. But the Emprethh ith fed up. She’th been dealing with it for about a hundred thweepth, tho we’ve thtarted getting hintth that she’th angling for Interthtellar War II.”

“How on Terra do you figure all this out?” Rose marvelled. “Isn’t your entire crew constantly on the run?”

“Yeah, but whenever we pathh by the Alternian thythtem my moirail updateth me on the grapevine gothhip. She hath a lot of high-up contactth for a lowblood, and she can read the glyphth on the wall. Pluth, TZ uthed to be a legithlatherator, and thome of her old friendth thtill tell her newth. Believe me, the Terran government knowth, and it’th trying to keep that knowledge away from the plebeth.” He grinned, showing sharp twinned fangs. “There’th gonna be a big market in ship grade metalth, ith what I’m thaying.”

“We’ll be sure to stock up, then.” Rose smiled back sardonically. “But why would you tell me this, a human you don’t know or trust? I could tell any of my countless human friends.”

“The more people who know there’th going to be a war, the better,” he said, face falling into a grim deadpan. “If everyone can be prepared, or if we can find a way to head it off, it might not be ath bad ath total thlaughter on both thideth. You can bet your athh the Emprethh ith developing new weaponth with human shipth and bodieth in mind, and bathically everyone we know will get caught in the crothhfire.” He spun his chair from side to side for a few moments, looking agitated, and then lifted his head to face her directly. “Pluth the economy will go to hell.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that. Captor snickered with her, and turned sideways to drape his legs over the arm of the chair. “I don’t suppose you’re working on a way to inform the plebes of this imminent recession?” she asked, schooling her face into overwrought innocence.

“Wow, who would have thought, huh? Yeah, but thadly the newthfeedth have really good thecurity and I don’t exactly have a lot of extra time to work on it. I think I’m getting pretty clothe to done, though! You reckon I should have AA broadcatht it, thinthe no-one will underthtand me?”

“That’s not…” Rose’s brow furrowed.

“Oh, my moirail. Aradia. Thhe’th great.” A dreamy look came over his face, and Rose knew that she was about to learn a lot more than she’d ever wanted to about some skinny asshole’s moirail.

This was all right, as it turned out; Aradia was firmly among the ranks of the chronically interesting. She was an archaeologist, a powerful psychic, and great fun at parties. She also had really thoft hair and enormouth thquithhy boobth, like hot damn. When Rose burst out laughing, Sollux seemed to realize his poetic waxing and blushed a hot yellow. He shrank into himself, losing his animation as his face returned to normal, and went back to coding.

Rose smiled and wrote down a few items in her notebook, under a new section.

\--

They were a hundred hours from Thos when Sollux finished with the virus and a complementary security system. He decided to celebrate by downing the remainder of his grub puffs in one go, which turned out to be an exceptionally poor idea. They might be cleaning up flavor dust for weeks.

Roxy’s (apparently more civilized) version of a celebration was to cram all six of them into the common block and hand around martini glasses full of apple juice while pretending to be drunk. This wasn’t as bad as it could have been, since Roxy had to stop staggering around giggling when Pyrope came on the radio to ask her where she planned on landing when they got to Thos. Roxy skipped off to the bridge and left the rest of them in awkward silence for a few moments before Jade said, “Now who wants to have a real party?”

A real party, in Jade’s opinion, included very old games from Earth like Twister, which Rose had never even heard of. Where was she getting them? When Roxy returned, Jade was still trying to convince Rose, Dirk, and Sollux that incurring muscle strain and falling over on each other would be great fun; and Roxy joined Jade’s camp.

“Since we’re so divided,” Rose said, “why don’t we play a less physical game?”

Sollux clapped politely. “Before anyone elthe hath a thtupid idea, I’ll thuggetht the Game In Which Teamth Attempt To Guethh A Word From A Picture Being Drawn.”

“That’s like Pictionary, right?” asked Jade. Nobody could tell her, as nobody else had heard of it, but it probably was.

So they played the game that, for the sake of time, they called Pictionary; and Rose, Sollux, and Jade won narrowly on one of Jake’s turns drawing (he was abominable). Everyone went to bed feeling only slightly over- or under-partied, and business went on as usual until they reached Thos.

The two ships docked in the morning, local time, and whoever had hired them was called. They sent a couple burly guys to pick it up in a hover-dolly, and handed a blissful Roxy a card with six thousand credits. She bowed and waved them off, looking as if she needed a kerchief to use as a tiny flag.

Once Pyrope had her fifteen hundred, she snagged Sollux off the Dashwave’s loading ramp and carried him like a distressed damsel back into her own ship. He didn’t look up from the tiny tablet computer he was squinting at except to return, halfheartedy, Rose’s salute of farewell. 

After receiving some kind of fist-based secret handshake from Dave, as they watched the LPOS take off Rose turned to Jade and asked, “Well, are you tired of us yet?”

“I may be in another couple hundred hours,” Jade said, smiling. “For now let’s explore!”


	4. In Which Aradia is Finally Revealed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sollux wasn't kidding about the 'broad' part of broadcast.

As they had spent only one day in Thos-At the last time the Dashwave had been there, Jake and Roxy were determined to see all that the city had to offer, or at least everything not in the way of stabbings. As they expected to be planetside for at least fifty hours, Dirk put out word that he was open for commissions and soon had a short list of people who wanted really nice prosthetic limbs or AI. Rose left him to it and went with the other three to look around the bazaar-like tourist district.

They learned that calling it a tourist district was a little optimistic, as the closest to tourists Thos-At had ever gotten were starship crews on leave. It was not a city renowned for its beauty or its friendliness; in fact, the entire planet was known for being squalid, poor, and lamentably uncivilized despite the best efforts of diplomats from other star systems.

Rose liked it despite all this, or because of it. Much as she loved order, she was always suspicious of places that were too tidy, because it meant they kept their dirty laundry buried. Those sorts of governments suffered violent insurrection less often, but when it happened it destroyed everything within the star system. This made her think of Sollux’s warning of a second Interstellar War, and she wasn’t sure whether to be glad that Alternian-run governments kept their hemospectrum-based corruption and violent tendencies in the open. She still hadn’t told any of the rest of the crew.

The day was probably fine, under all the smog, and the people running around shouting at each other seemed pleased enough. Jade and Jake, two enormous walking stomachs, insisted that they buy food first from an assortment of untrustworthy-looking street vendors; and then they strolled along the main market street pointing out interesting or gaudy items, and occasionally buying them. Roxy was feeling generous after receiving forty-five hundred, and gave each of them an allowance of a hundred credits for their stay on Thos.

Rose, for her part, was looking for lovely knives and lovely dresses—the former for bragging and the latter so she could send pictures to Kanaya. She ended up finding a rather nice knife ornamented with some of the constellations visible from Thos, but decided not to buy it because they didn’t exist anywhere but this star system and it would be confusing and/or embarrassing when she tried to show it off.

She found a wonderful dress, though: a soft, shiny synthetic of dark saffron that gathered in to a brilliant turquoise belt at the waist and fell in waves down her legs, revealing through the slit left side a gauzy pale cream. It wasn’t functional, but it was the most beautiful thing she had ever imagined herself wearing. Rose was, after all, just a bit vain—she may have gotten it from Dirk, or from Roxy, or both. In any case, she spent almost sixty credits on it, and most of the rest on a subtle choker of dichro-glazed aluminum with a turquoise pendant. She was damned if she wasn’t going to look good tonight, even if it was just her and Jade video chatting Kanaya in their room.

They went home early, a few hours before sunset, with a feast for Dirk. Roxy rightly assumed that he hadn’t eaten anything since she’d forced a bowl of cereal down him that morning, and he was grateful to remember that he didn’t exist to build mechanical arms. Over dinner Roxy tried to convince Dirk to come out with them the next day, but he demurred on the grounds that he still had “basically a shitload of fuckin’ arms to build,” because “it seems like someone went a little ax-crazy in one of the mafias.”

In the end he agreed to come out in the morning to buy materials, but only because he didn’t quite trust Jade to do it for him. “No offense, you understand,” he said. “I’m a specialist, and you’re a specialist in something else.” Jade tried to give him a cheerful noogie, but he ducked away to protect his hair (which was carefully gelled at all times, even when he wasn’t going to leave the ship all day) and she chased him into the cargo hold while everyone laughed. Eventually she came back with him in her arms, one limp wrist over his forehead in a mock swoon. His hair was mussed, he had a bruise blossoming on one elbow, as if she had had to drag him around a corner, and both of them were grinning.

So that was that.

Later Rose and Jade contacted Kanaya, who was luckily online. She had just woken up and was getting dressed for work (she apprenticed with a tailor for the very rich), but she had time to admire the color and cut of Rose’s new dress. Rose also introduced her to Jade, who was wearing a charming outfit she’d gotten for less than half the cost of Rose’s. Kanaya blushed deep green when Jade told her, in her candid manner, that she was really pretty and looked great in those clothes! Kanaya explained that these were, in fact, her pyjamas, but that Jade was very kind to say so and now, um, she had to go.

Their last vision of Kanaya was her applying lipstick as she switched her computer to webcam mode, and then Jade chuckled. “She’s so cute! Is she your long-distance girlfriend?”

Even though her face was hot, Rose laughed. “No, she isn’t. We, um. Tried that once, but it doesn’t work very well when one of you has a job and the other lives on a smuggling ship. Timing, you know.”

Jade puffed out her lips and nodded, trying to look wise. “I know how it is.” Rose doubted somewhat that she did, but was content to let it be.

\--

Just a few hundred hours before they reached Woden, the Dashwave stopped to refuel one last time, and her crew disembarked into the shopping district of Bael. Every surface of the twenty-odd-story buildings was plastered with vidscreens, most of them playing ads and news of rebellions or elections or new planets terraformed. Rose and Jade walked out of a department store, laden with overpriced but endemic fruit, just in time to watch every screen in sight short out at once. As people in the canyonlike streets began to look up in confusion, about three quarters of the screens turned back on.

Every one of them showed a feed of a very pretty plump troll with enormous ram’s horns, sitting in what was probably her respite block. The picture was in black and white and she wore no sign, but despite these precautions, it was fairly obvious from her build and manner that she was a lowblood. Rose already had suspicions as to her identity.

“Hello citizens of cities where it’s currently time to be awake!” she began enthusiastically. Her smile was almost blinding, and her teeth appeared to have been filed to make her look more like a midblood. “This is your friendly interstellar neighborhood hacker team bringing you news of impending war that the Terran and Alternian governments are covering up.” She assumed an expression of exaggerated shock. “What’s that? Impending war? You heard right, citizens! Her Imperious Condescension is getting pretty fed up with being treated like the Terrans’ attack dog, and don’t look now but I think they’ve noticed. Anyone work in an Alternian weapons factory? Noticed an increase in volume output recently? Well, we have. And,” she said, as the screen split to show a professional-looking graph, “here’s something to illustrate.” The graph switched to a different one, labeled VIOLENT INSURRECTION VS TIME, with a similar upward trend. “And as you can see, the Alternian military has been putting down a suspicious number of failed coups. In fact—”

The screens all cut out at once again, and this time all of them came back on, showing a cerulean-blooded government official from the Centra system.

“We regret the interruption of your content. Pay no attention to alarmist agitators, as we assure you there is no truth in their words. They are trying to stir up conflict between the peaceful superpowers that make your lives safe and comfortable. Alternian military personnel are being sent even now to arrest the offenders.” Rose noticed a slight pause before he said ‘arrest,’ and knew that if the military found them, the hackers would all be disappointingly killed trying to escape. “We now return to your regularly scheduled broadcasts.” And newsfeeds and adverts flickered back into motion as if they’d never stopped. Rose noted a conspicuous absence of any breaking news regarding the hackjob.

“What was that about?” Jade asked Rose after a moment, shifting her bag to her other shoulder. “You look like you know something.”

“Let us just say that I have heard this news before, and may have, er, forgotten to tell you about it. Accidentally, if you can believe it. But public places such as shopping districts make less than ideal venues for discussing the identities of wanted criminals.”

Jade gasped, somewhat unnecessarily. “You know her?”

“I believe I do,” muttered Rose, amused. “But can we please get back to the Dashwave and talk to Roxy and Dirk about this?”

Jade saluted with a crisp “Yes, ma’am!” and they hurried to the subway, now packed with confused shoppers. Within half an hour they reached the ship, where the captain and her brother were waiting for Jake to return.

“I think he’s still hauling a giant hunk of metal over here with his big ol’ muscles,” Roxy explained, sounding unconcerned. “But Rosie, you look like you're exploding with the burning desire to tell us all something.”

“I believe that our illicit announcer is one Aradia Megido, ferry pilot and moirail to Sollux Captor.” Everyone but Dirk looked reasonably impressed. “Mr. Captor, during his stay on our ship, told me something very similar to what we have heard today, in addition to warning me that he would soon be making a public broadcast. It’s an impressive testament to his skill that they managed forty seconds before they got shut down. I think they were broadcasting to most of the inhabited worlds we know about.”

Dirk whistled in admiration. “Not bad. Sounds like he could give me and Rox a tip or two. But if there’s about to be a war on—and I expect that your Captor and his friend have just made it more likely and more imminent—we have some preparation to do.”

At that moment Jake appeared in the doorway, sweaty and irritable. “Dad fucking gummit, guys, thanks for leaving a chap out of the important discussion of the century.” 

Rose shrugged, trying to look apologetic. “I can but bow to the whims of my family when they tell me to spill the fuckin’ beans already.”

“You know what’s going on?” Jake walked in and sat on the arm of Roxy’s chair without taking his eyes off Rose.

“Yes. As I just finished explaining, Sollux Captor and his moirail, and possibly some others, are in a great deal of trouble with two governments right now. And we should start stockpiling weapons-grade alloys.”

Jake didn’t seem to know how to reply, so Jade said, “Well, what am I going to do?”

Roxy turned toward her. “Whaddya mean, love?”

“I mean,” said Jade, twisting her long hair into her fingers, “is the Centra system going to be attacked? I won’t have as much mobility as you guys, and there’s no way I can get my own ship with the kind of money I have.”

“You can always sign on with us,” said Dirk quietly. “I can’t tell you whether an attack on Woden would be successful or even likely, but your dog could be endured for the sake of your safety.”

“Really?” she looked back at Roxy. “I promise he’d be no trouble, and I’d keep him quiet!”

“If it keeps you out of bombing sites,” Roxy said, “I’m sure we can work something out.”

\--

The first thing Roxy did was contact Pyrope’s ship long-distance and leave a message inquiring as to the health and whereabouts of Mr. Captor, as well as Pyrope’s plan of action. Roxy told Rose and Jade she didn’t expect an answer, but about twelve hours later they received a terse reply stating that Captor’s whereabouts were his own business, that the LPOS would be keeping well out of the way of any fighting, and that a smart captain would do the same. She closed cryptically, saying: “You would do well to remember, Captain Bubblegum, that it is unlikely there will be only two sides in this war.” 

“She knows something,” said Rose as soon as the message ended. “Sollux told her something, that he’s planning an insurrection, or…”

“I like the idea that we don’t have to side with the government,” said Jade absentmindedly as she scrolled through pages of forum threads discussing Aradia’s broadcast. “It’d be cool to be a rebel! Instate a new, fair government, stick it to the man slash troll, meet cute revolutionaries. All that fun stuff!”

“I’m glad you can joke about all this, Jade,” said Roxy, and she really did sound glad. “But going against the two powers that control about half the galaxy means something like twice the chance of dying horribly.”

“It would be nice to ask Sollux himself about this, but he’s probably deep incognito for the next while,” mused Rose. “And Aradia certainly won’t be running a ferry with such a big price on her head.”

Roxy shrugged philosophically. “Maybe he’ll contact us,” she said. “In the meantime, I wanna see if the media's gotten around to trying to make sense of this whole thing yet.”

She flipped to the ABS2 channel, where the Heiress was discussing policy with a conservative pundit and a human talk show host. “I’ve never been all that glubbing happy about Alternian policy vis-à-vis rebellious planetary populations,” she was saying. “It would be much more effective to just be nice to them, you know?”

“Sure,” the pundit interrupted, “if you want to let them know they can walk all over you while you betray your cultural heritage.”

“No offense,” said the Heiress sweetly, “but Alternia's cultural heritage is bullshit. Until about a hundred sweeps ago we still culled people for having the wrong pigment in their blood!”

“Culling has been scientifically proven to be the best and only way to strengthen the genetics of our species as a whole!”

“No,” the Heiress began, but Roxy changed the channel in disgust. “We could listen to eugenics arguments all night,” she said. “Why can’t they address the actual freakin’ war that’s gonna happen?”

The next channel up featured a popular blogger who was optimistic to the point of delusion that “there’s no way we can go start fighting again now that we’ve been at peace since the Interstellar War!” Roxy rolled her eyes and muted it in disgust.

“The media’s obviously taken a giant fuckin’ sack of credit to not actually cover what’s important. Probably from both sides. I’m going to bed.” She rolled her chair over to the doorway, got up, and left. “Night, girls!” she called from the common block.

“What do you reckon?” Jade asked when Roxy’s footsteps faded and they could hear the muffled voices of her and Dirk. “Are the Alternians going to launch a surprise attack?”

“I’m willing to bet that the Terrans are shoring up defenses in hopes that the might of the Alternian military will break upon their inimitable wall, surely completely without cracks.”

Jade laughed. “This is gonna be a long war, huh?”

Rose was about to agree when her handheld computer pinged. When she checked, the chat client was flashing, but what was in the window was utter gibberish. Jade’s handheld pinged too, with an anonymous message containing two words: key RO2EBU2H


End file.
